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Obamacare Surcharge at Denny's

Now there's another reason to avoid Denny's, aside from them having the most unattractive waitresses possible.

A Florida restaurateur who operates roughly 40 Denny’s locations and five Hurricane Grill & Wings franchises in Florida, Virginia and Georgia intends to add a 5 percent surcharge to customers’ bills to offset costs from ObamaCare beginning in January 2014 when the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented.

Under the current law, employers with more than 50 full-time (or equivalent) workers will be charged a penalty for the number of employees exceeding 30 full-time staffers who are not covered. With an average of 35 full-time employees per location, Metz said the $2,000 penalty would total roughly $70,000 per restaurant. Current coverage costs Metz up to $6,000 annually per full-time employee, he said. He currently provides coverage to about 250 employees.

I don't know how I feel about this to be honest. I don't think it's something I should be completely ignoring, but I'm very skeptical. I've read about other things similar to this, and when I read the article, it seems this is only happening at businesses with owners that have a very conservative worldview. The same thing happened with Papa John's. "Papa" John Schnatter is charging extra for his pizzas, ostensibly to offset the new cost burdens of Obamacare. But John Schnatter also happens to be a huge Republican donor, so I'm not so sure he doesn't just do this to make a political point as well as extra profit.